Athletics Prospects: Jacob Wilson returns from injured list

Wilson is back - and raking - atop the Aviators lineup

The Oakland Athletics system is getting healthier, with both Brett Harris and Jacob Wilson returning to Las Vegas’s lineup and making immediate impacts. In Midland the player of the week was Denzel Clarke, whose three home runs made him the top player in the system last week. Down at the lower levels Luis Morales and Steven Echavarria each had bounce back starts.

Las Vegas Aviators

Record: 38-38, 1-0 2nd half, t-1st in PCL West

Season stats

• Nick Allen - 33 G, 154 PA, 2 HR, 9.7% BB, 14.9% K, .341/.403/.474, 121 wRC+
• Joe Boyle - 10 ⅓ IP, 7.84 ERA, 28.8% BB, 19.2% K, 0 HR, 6.63 FIP
• Logan Davidson - 31 G, 119 PA, 4 HR, 5.9% BB, 35.3% K, .288/.336/.477, 99 wRC+
• JT Ginn - 24 ⅓ IP, 6.66 ERA, 8.3% BB, 29.4 % K, 4 HR, 4.79 FIP
• Brett Harris - 32 G, 131 PA, 3 HR, 15.3% BB, 24.4% K, .284/.405/.431, 116 wRC+
• Max Muncy - 22 G, 87 PA, 2 HR, 9.2% BB, 23.0% K, .274/.379/.438, 108 wRC+
• Ryan Noda - 43 G, 191 PA, 10 HR, 19.9% BB, 27.7% K, .230/.398/.500, 123 wRC+
• Colby Thomas - 6 G, 27 PA, 0 HR, 7.4% BB, 14.8% K, .375/.444/.542, 151 wRC+
• Jacob Wilson - 6 G, 25 PA, 0 HR, 4.0% BB, 8.0% K, .375/.400/.458, 119 wRC+

Top Performers

The Aviators have turned into a powerhouse lineup, welcoming back Brett Harris and Jacob Wilson to round out a now wildly potent lineup. Wilson was fantastic in his rehab in Arizona, then seemed to miss no beats whatsoever by coming back on Tuesday night and reaching base four times. Wilson’s wasn’t the best return, however, as Brett Harris had an even more outstanding game on Tuesday. Harris only had one game in Arizona before being sent back to Vegas, and while he isn’t playing full games just yet he has done well in both of them. On Tuesday he got a couple of pitches left on the inner half and up, and he turned on both and drove them out for home runs. Harris and Wilson were key parts of Vegas starting the second half with an 11-0 win, and with a lineup this strong they could make a push for the PCL playoffs.

Tuesday also featured the first appearance for Kyle Muller in his rehab, and he needed only ten pitches to breeze through his inning of work. Muller’s fastball was slightly down (92.1 vs season average 92.7), but if you look at Statcast data it is not as bad as that, rather there were a couple of changeups miscategorized as fastballs. Muller filled the zone well and can hopefully get back into a bullpen role fairly soon. The same can’t be said for Joe Boyle, who just hasn’t been right since coming back. Boyle went 13 days between his last two outings, then came out on Sunday and issued five walks to the eight batters he faced. I hate raising alarm bells over a handful of starts right after an injury, and I don’t think anyone expected Boyle to repeat his strike-throwing from late last year, but Boyle’s complete inability to even sniff the zone has to be concerning for the Athletics right now. At this rate it may be a case where he doesn’t even make it back to Oakland by the end of the season, which isn’t what was expected coming into the year.

Beyond this there were a couple of standout performances. JT Ginn has continued his impressive run at Triple-A with seven strikeouts in 4 ¹⁄₃ innings, though I think it’s a similar case to Muller in that what he is doing at this level probably won’t work in a starting role in the major leagues. Still he is an obviously better strike-thrower than Muller, and with that and his fastball/slider combination he’s showing major league relief potential. Looking to the offense it took awhile for Ryan Noda to get going, but he got locked in quickly and had an absurd week at the plate. Noda went deep twice against Tacoma and added a home run on Tuesday, while also having nine walks to only three strikeouts in the past seven games. It’s going to be hard for Noda to win back a job given what Soderstrom has done in Oakland so far, but he’s doing everything he can in Triple-A to prove worthy of some sort of major league role. Then over to Colby Thomas, who has done everything he needs to since being promoted to prove that his Double-A breakout wasn’t a fluke. He did have a terrible game Tuesday where he struck out three times, but that is coming off of a series in Tacoma in which he had four doubles and reached base at a .444 clip. The only real concern right now is that he has been prone to chasing over this first week and a bit, and right now it seems pitchers have started to feed him junk out of the zone to try to elicit those swings. He will struggle if he can’t sit back and be a bit more patient, though this is something we knew was going to be a problem once he was promoted.

Midland Rockhounds

Record: 40-30, 0-1 2nd half, t-4th TL South, 1 GB

Season stats

• Cooper Bowman - 59 G, 267 PA, 8 HR, 12.4% BB, 19.9% K, .265/.360/.429, 122 wRC+
• Denzel Clarke - 54 G, 215 PA, 8 HR, 6.0% BB, 37.7% K, .237/.293/.424, 99 wRC+
• Ryan Cusick - 17 ⅓ IP, 3.12 ERA, 12.9% BB, 25.7% K, 1 HR, 3.87 FIP
• James Gonzalez - 42 ⅓ IP, 3.83 ERA, 9.9% BB, 19.9% K, 2 HR, 3.65 FIP
• Gunnar Hoglund - 78 ⅓ IP, 3.20 ERA, 7.8% BB, 22.3% K, 10 HR, 4.34 FIP
• Brennan Milone - 64 G, 268 PA, 5 HR, 10.8% BB, 20.9% K, .267/.358/.397, 116 wRC+
• Royber Salinas - 36 ⅔ IP, 3.68 ERA, 15.8% BB, 25.5% K, 5 HR, 5.40 FIP
• Daniel Susac - 43 G, 176 PA, 3 HR, 4.0% BB, 29.0% K, .263/.295/.365, 85 wRC+

Top Performers

Daniel Susac seemed to be on a pretty good stretch at the plate, as his contact was improving and he was slowly, but surely raising his numbers back towards league averages. Unfortunately that will once again hit a halt, as he was placed back on the injured list on June 20th. The reason for this was not disclosed, but the easy assumption to make is that it was related to a foul ball in the second inning of the game on the 19th that hit off of Susac’s shoulder. Susac initially stayed in the game and finished off the second inning with no issues, but did not come back out for the third inning. Then there is Cooper Bowman, who while he hasn’t been officially placed on the injured list hasn’t appeared in a game since June 15th.

In positive news there can be no denying that Denzel Clarke is turning his season around, as he has been fantastic for the entire month of June and the ball is jumping off of his bat. Clarke has been showing significant power to all fields and has done well to find the barrel over the last month and some change, and capped his week off last week with two home runs in Sunday’s game. Clarke has steadily kept his strikeout rate on the decline, and while there is still much more swing and miss than you would like to see he is at least keeping it around reasonable rates. The real concern I guess in all of this is that he hasn’t drawn a walk since May 21st, which is certainly a smaller concern given just how well he has hit and how bad he was early in the season, but it is a concern nonetheless as with his strikeout rates he needs to draw walks to maintain a decent on base percentage.

The standout performer on the mound was James Gonzalez, who tossed a masterpiece of a one-hitter on Thursday with five strikeouts. That is the second time in his past three starts that Gonzalez has posted six one-hit innings, and while his numbers have certainly taken a dip since promotion he has put himself on the map this season. Gonzalez doesn’t have a pitch that projects to a major league swing-and-miss offering, and he’ll have to see command improvement to find himself a major league contributor, but his progress this season has him on the right path to reaching that role in a couple of seasons.

Lansing Lugnuts

Record: 32-37, 0-4 2nd half, 6th in MWL East, 4 GB

Season stats

• Euribiel Angeles - 61 G, 256 PA, 6 HR, 4.3% BB, 11.3% K, .293/.324/.438, 113 wRC+
• Henry Bolte - 64 G, 294 PA, 11 HR, 12.9% BB, 31.6% K, .283/.395/.531, 158 wRC+
• Brayan Buelvas - 62 G, 280 PA, 6 HR, 14.3% BB, 21.8% K, .277/.382/.468, 140 wRC+
• Will Johnston - 31 ⅔ IP, 4.26 ERA, 8.9% BB, 27.4% K, 4 HR, 4.06 FIP
• Luis Morales - 35 IP, 4.37 ERA, 9.6% BB, 25.3% K, 4 HR, 4.18 FIP
• Will Simpson - 60 G, 259 PA, 6 HR, 17.0% BB, 25.9% K, .283/.405/.467, 147 wRC+
• Chen Zhong-Ao Zhuang - 15 IP, 3.00 ERA, 5.1% BB, 32.2% K, 0 HR, 1.59 FIP

Top Performers

The star-level performances from Luis Morales have been unfortunately sparse this season, but Sunday he broke through with a strong day in Beloit. Morales only threw 66 pitches and went three innings, but he had the Sky Carp swinging at air, forcing 13 swing and misses and seven strikeouts. This was overall probably the best version of Morales we’ve seen this season, as not only was his slider in peak form and able to consistently finish at bats, but three of his strikeouts came on his changeup. Morales’s changeup has been a better offering this year than last, and though the overall feel is inconsistent it’s trending closer towards an average projection as he’s been able to keep it at the bottom of the zone more often.

Chen Zhong-Ao Zhuang only threw 38 pitches last week and came in to pitch out of relief, though this could be more of a case of Oakland trying to limit his workload like they have all season. Zhuang was undoubtedly dominant in his short appearance, forcing nine whiffs and locating all of his pitches well. I feel at this point even though he only has 89 ¹⁄₃ professional innings and only 15 with Lansing that he is clearly too advanced for High-A and this is nothing more than experience for him. His stuff and command is Double-A quality right now at the very least, and while I’m not clear exactly what Oakland’s plan is for him it seems like he could be a candidate to make the major leagues in the second half next season.

While the pitching staff did well enough for Lansing the offense was atrocious last week, and the Lugnuts are now on an eight game losing streak following a 15-9 loss on Tuesday. Henry Bolte has cooled off a bit at the plate, though he is far from the problem as he has still pulled his weight overall. Bolte had one three strikeout game, and it seems that pattern is holding where he makes a lot of contact for awhile and then has a bad game sprinkled in. Tuesday he went 2-3 and drove in a run in the loss, and he started out last week with a home run and three doubles in the first three games before falling off at the end of the week. Bolte was never going to repeat his absurd May, but he’s done about as well as he can with a .286/.370/.543 line in June. Over his past 30 games Bolte has a 28.1% strikeout rate, a 177 wRC+, and 18 extra base hits.

Stockton Ports

Record: 28-40, 2-2 2nd half, t-2nd in CAL North, 1 GB

Season stats

• Steven Echavarria - 24.1 IP, 8.88 ERA, 12.4% BB, 16.8% K, 1 HR, 5.09 FIP
• Ryan Lasko - 64 G, 301 PA, 4 HR, 15.6% BB, 28.9% K, .218/.355/.319, 95 wRC+
• Nate Nankil - 59 G, 252 PA, 5 HR, 13.5% BB, 18.7% K, .245/.381/.387, 116 wRC+
• Myles Naylor - 60 G, 262 PA, 7 HR, 17.2% BB, 32.8% K, .181/.324/.312, 82 wRC+

Top Performers

After a couple of poor games Steven Echavarria got himself back on track on Tuesday, pitching four scoreless innings with only one run allowed. This was the best game for Echavarria control-wise in quite awhile, and it seems that as long as he can keep making competitive pitches that Single-A won’t be much of a problem for him. When he struggles to land his slider and hitters can sit on his fastball they tend to do damage, but when his slider works it’s clearly a go-to offering and he has days like this where he is in complete control.

Offensively there really isn’t much good coming out of Stockton. TJ Schofield-Sam had a solid week last week and hit a home run, but he is also an older player who still hasn’t had a great season. He and Nate Nankil, who struck out more last week than he has for most of the season, are the only two players currently in the Ports regular lineup with an OPS above .700. Myles Naylor didn’t do much with the bat last week, but he didn’t really have to. Naylor has draw nine walks in his past seven games while striking out only four times, perhaps a response to a stretch where he struggled to really find an approach that worked for him.

ACL Athletics

Record: 12-25, 5th in ACL East, 13 GB

Season Stats

• Cesar Gonzalez - 12 G, 46 PA, 0 HR, 8.7% BB, 30.4% K, .244/.326/.366, 80 wRC+
• German Ortiz - 35 G, 157 PA, 2 HR, 15.9% BB, 19.1% K, .302/.423/.395, 122 wRC+
• Carlos Pacheco - 26 G, 107 PA, 1 HR, 13.1% BB, 22.4% K, .207/.377/.293, 91 wRC+

Top Performers

The system is getting healthier, and it all started out in Arizona. Wilson’s rehab was phenomenal, as he had a 1.504 OPS in five games, and now the top player down there is Logan Davidson. Davidson was on a hot streak in Las Vegas before going down with injury, and he reached base in all three plate appearances in his first rehab game. As for the regular players, there wasn’t much good to speak of. Carlos Pacheco had an awful week, going 2-18 at the plate and striking out six times. German Ortiz was solid with three hits and three walks.

DSL Athletics

Record: 6-10, 6th in DSL West, 5 GB

Season Stats

• Erick Matos - 14 IP, 2.57 ERA, 17.7% BB, 22.6% K, 0 HR, 4.81 FIP
• Edgar Montero - 15 G, 66 PA, 1 HR, 16.7% BB, 24.2% K, .222/.354/.407, 103 wRC+
• Jose Ramos - 15 G, 60 PA, 0 HR, 15.0% BB, 33.3% K .196/.317/.275, 68 wRC+
• Sebastian Rojas - 15 G, 58 PA, 1 HR, 13.8% BB, 15.5% K, .273/.421/.386, 125 wRC+
• Franco Zabaleta - 9 IP, 8.00 ERA, 8.7% BB, 26.1% K, 0 HR, 3.24 FIP

Just like in the ACL not many top guns in the Dominican Summer League had a week to write home about, that is except for two notable exceptions. Sebastian Rojas has been the most consistent bat down there, and he took his game to another level by not striking out in any of the five games he played. When he put the ball in play good things happened as well, as he went 6-13 with a double. Franco Zabaleta wasn’t a high profile signing but he has sure pitched like one. Zabaleta threw three hitless innings and struck out five batters, and his K-BB% of 19.6% is by far the best number on the DSL A’s. Hopefully I can get some reports on him soon, as although I’m distrusting of DSL numbers performances like his have to draw some attention.